Our heritage is at the heart of our business

We’re immensely proud of our heritage

which goes all the way back to 1971

Mila was founded in Denmark by Michael Davidsen & Lars Borup-Nielsen – the Mi & La of Mila.

The pair exhibited at Interbuild 1979 and the following year invited Ray Gyde to help them set up Mila in the UK; with an 8000 sq ft warehouse in Daventry and a workforce of just two.

When our Managing Director Richard Gyde joined the business in 1981, in the days before faxes and emails even existed, one of his weekly tasks was to drive the invoices to Luton airport every Friday so that they could be flown back to Denmark. It wasn’t long though before the UK success story was underway and, within five years, the workforce in the UK had grown to 60 and we had moved into the purpose-built premises on the Drayton Fields Industrial Estate which have been our home ever since.

Unsurprisingly, Richard remains our longest serving employee, but there are no less than nine members of what we call the ‘30+’ club who have been with Mila since the early 1980s.

While Mila became part of Arran Isle Group in 2009, it retains a sense of family and belonging which we think goes back to those early days. Over a third of employees have been with Mila for more than 10 years and the Mila DNA which has existed since 1971 remains as strong and as important to us as ever.

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Corporate Social Responsibility

Ethical sourcing, responsible manufacturing, honest trading & looking after the well being of our staff